The NWG team have written a series of articles to support National Child Exploitation Awareness day 2022 (#CEADay22) – 18th March. Today we hear from Steve Baguley NWG Community and Education Lead.

The Bridging the Gap Transitional Safeguarding briefing which was published in June 2021 has been well received and it is encouraging to see children and adult partnerships working together to improve support and safeguarding responses as children legally become adults at 18 years old.  However, it is also important to focus on the post 16 transitions when young people leave at the end of year 11. This transition and the 16/17 age group are regularly brought up as a concern in our meetings with local areas. We regularly hear about work being undertaken with schools but not always with post 16 providers.   

Examining the year 11 transition through a contextual safeguarding lens we see this can be a period of significant change for young people. An exciting time of opportunity but also a potential vulnerability. They can leave school/referral units where they may have developed trusted relationships with staff to travel out of their local community areas to attend college/ apprenticeships etc. They may also change peer groups as they meet young people from other areas/communities. Sadly, there have been cuts to the Connexions Service and youth work across the country that would have supported young people with this transition. Young people aged 16/17 and older who are not engaged in education, employment or training are potentially vulnerable to exploitation and we need to ensure that we have services in place that can support and safeguard this age group.  

There is rightly a focus on school exclusions and the vulnerability to exploitation. However, there is not the same narrative for these young people when they leave Year 11. Are they still not vulnerable post 16? Where do these young people go post 16 and what are their ongoing support and safeguarding needs?

We have met with several Designated Safeguarding Leads from colleges, sixth forms and training providers and it has been a pleasure to meet with such committed, passionate and professional staff. We have collated a short summary of this work highlighting the role of the post 16 DSL. The key area that they identified, where improvement was needed was information sharing between schools and post 16 providers. There were examples of where this is done well but sadly many examples where it was not.  There is clearly a need for greater consistency in information sharing between schools and post 16 providers.

As well as continuing our work on Exploitation and the Transition Into Adulthood we will also be focusing on the post 16 transition and examining and sharing support and safeguarding practice in this area. If you have any practice that would like to share or any issues that would like to raise please get in touch using the e-mail below.

Steve Baguley – [email protected]